Saturday, January 12, 2008

Environmentalism: bang goes thier nuclear arguments

There may actually be a coherent and decent argument against building a new generation of nuclear power stations in Britain - but the British environmentalist movement have not come up with one single one so far. Indeed, environmental arguments against nuclear power are devised solely from myths and ill-founded jurassic prejudice against new technology, which they appear to fear for no good reason.

For example, one of the fiercest critics of the governments plan to build new nuclear power stations is Caroline Lucas MEP for the Green Party. As far as Dr Lucas is concerned securing Britain's future energy supply with state-of-the-art nuclear power stations is simply 'dangerous, irresponsible and costly distraction from the real challenge of tackling climate change' - but none of this is true.

Indeed, Western nuclear power facilities are the safest and the most economically viable form of electricity production known to mankind. Don't take my word for it - just take a good look at the French nuclear industry who have been producing safe and cheap electricity from the atom for well over 30 years. Far from being 'dangerous, irresponsible and costly', French nuclear electricity production has been an undeniable success story.

If anything, it is the likes of Dr Lucas that have been irresponsible, costly, and ultimately dangerous. Indeed, it is Dr Lucas who uses and abuses the politics of fear when she raises the spectra of international terrorism as a reason why Britain should not dabble with nuclear technology. It has been 30 years of such backward, environmentalist propaganda that has held back the development of nuclear technology in the UK. I think it is high time we put the greens anti-progressive and rubbish ideas where they belong, in the recycling dustbin of history.

9 Comments:

Courtney, what about trench foot? If Greenpeace had been more concerned about this during WW1 instead of kowtowing to Pankhurst et al and worrying about Japanese whaling, Old Blighty might have bashed those Krauts a month earlier. They could have invented, dapper, mid-calf, rubber-type boots, thereby enhancing the soldier image and at the same time providng a bit of comfort for the boys. But no..all that was bothering Greenpeace during WWI was global warming their own arses. Sort it out. And thanks.

It is people like Dr Lucas who are as responsible as anyone for ensuring that we had not long abandoned coal and oil fired power generation for the carbon free and reliable alternative of nuclear power - and thus also for tons and tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere over the last few decades.

We abandoned a promising lead in the technology, but now we are in a position to take advantage of what others have learned to have better next generation infrastructure.

Nuclear power generation gives us the opportunity to massively reduce carbon emissions, without having to return to the stone age – or at least an agrarian economy . It will also reduce our vulnerability to the shenanigans of Открытое Aктсионерное Oбчтчество Газпром (Gazprom) and Putin.

I couldn't agree more Phil - indeed, the reason we in Britain have been burning fossil fuels for the past 30 years has been because British environmentalists have systematically held back development of nuclear technology over here for far, far too long.

The sooner we in Britain get our new generation of nuclear power stations online - the better, and cheaper energy will be for us all.

Courtney, Whilst the UK is perfectly capable of meeting it's own electricity generation needs at the moment, it does trade electricity with Europe - This is a key EU policy.

In 2004 we imported 9,784 GWh of electricity and exported 2,294 GWh.

Currently electricity is sent to and from France through a 2 GW high voltage direct current link under the English Channel via Folkstone. Electricity is imported from France when it is cheaper than we can make it for and vice versa.

There is also a 500 MW connection between Scotland and Northern Ireland and a 600 MW connection between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

I understand an underwater cable from Wales to the Republic of Ireland is also being considered.

Also in the planning stage is a cable link between the UK and Norway and one to the Netherlands.